Steve-Calvert.co.uk
Steve-Calvert.co.uk
A Passion For Horror
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Sliver is a very different kind of story than Levin's earlier work, Rosemary's Baby, but I did find the two books a little similar in places. In Rosemary's Baby, the central character, Rosemary Woodhouse, moves into an apartment in an old building called the Bamford; commonly know as The Black Bamford because of the long string of accidents and deaths associated with the building. In Sliver the central character, Kay Norris, moves into a building with a similar reputation. In this case, though, it is of a new and elegant sliver construction, but like the Bamford, the building at Thirteen Hundred Madison has seen an uncommon number of accidents and deaths, earning it the nickname Horror High-Rise. Both books also have characters who supposedly commit suicide by jumping from upper windows, but who have really been murdered. And in Rosemary's Baby an elevator repair man gets a little careless and has a fatal accident, while in Sliver it is the building's superintendent who falls into the elevator's machinery and meets with a messy end. These are just a few similarities that I noticed between the books. If I had read them back-to-back, who knows, I may have noticed even more. I am not criticizing though, just stating that they share some common ground. The main guts of the stories are very different. Rosemary's Baby is a supernatural horror. The horrors in Sliver are all very much flesh and blood. The first chapter of Sliver opens to find Kay being shown around apartment 20B, but while Kay is taking a look at her prospective new home the owner of the building is taking an equally close look at her through cameras hidden in the light fittings. There are cameras in every room, even the bathroom; not just in 20B, but in every apartment. The tenants of the sliver building are on camera twenty four seven, but none of them are aware of it. For the mysterious and voyeuristic owner of the building it is like watching the ultimate reality TV show and he is more than willing to kill to protect his secret. Kay is thirty-nine and a Senior Editor at a publishing house, she is also recently divorced and when she moves into 20B the only person sharing it with her is her cat, Felice. In a way it is a fresh start for Kay and she soon settles in and makes herself at home, becoming not only the new star of the hidden screens, but also somewhat of an obsession to her audience of one. At the beginning of the book the main mystery is over the identity of the owner of the building and the reader is quickly given a few possibilities to choose from. This isn't one of those stories where you only find out at the end, though. That particular cat is let out of the bag long before you reach the half way mark and I must admit that I found it impossible to guess which one of the prime suspects would turn out to be the owner. I could easily have been any of them and so none of them would have been a surprise to me. Once Kay finds out the truth about who owns the building it isn't long before she finds out about the cameras and, gradually, she too becomes fascinated by the show going on across the many screens. It is some time later, however, before she realizes the truth about the 'accidents' in the building and by then she is not only in too deep, she is in over her head and could be destined for a body bag herself. Sliver is 214 pages long and is split into three parts. Although the book has been labelled as a horror novel it doesn't have as much horror in as most of the books it would share shelf space with at your local Barnes and Noble. Throughout the book the reader is aware that Kay is probably in danger, but it is not until the thirty-some pages that form the third part of the book that the danger becomes a reality and most of the real horror begins. I did not enjoy Sliver as much as Rosemary's
Baby or The Stepford Wives, but it is a good solid
story that will probably appeal to quite a few readers who would not
normally enjoy a book that bears the horror label. It might prove to be a
little tame though, for readers who are used to plenty of horror in their
horror stories. If, on the other hand, you get really creeped out by the
thought of someone watching you, then this is your book and you are
destined for many a bad dream. |
